N'duja tasting

Finally! I was able to bring one all the way to completion done correctly. This is my 4th effort. The prior 3 have been documented here. But, I'll save you the time of tracking them down and give you a quick rundown. My first attempt was terrible. The fat proportion was akin to that of a regular salame, that alone, I believe, was enough to harden it enough to render it unspreadable. It was stuffed in an artificial casing, which did NOT shrink at the same rate as the meat. This caused giant mold covered gaps in the salame. So, on to #2. Again, the fat content was low, higher than the first one, yet still too low. This was stuffed in beef middles and at least they behaved properly. It tasted pretty good, but, was not spreadable. #3 was very promising, I revised the meat recipe and decided to use strictly jowl meat. The hot pepper component was 30%(combination of Calabrese peperoncino paste and powder). Stuffed it in a beef bung, which looked and worked very nicely. Where I screwed the pooch was fermenting. I put a light in the fermentation chamber. It got too hot and what I was left with was a big red water balloon. I opened that one up a couple months ago. I've been using it ever since in various cooked dishes with fantastic results. I'll move on to the latest. This was executed exactly the same as the 3rd. It was fermented for 5 days @ 70 degrees. I left it to dry for 5 months. Where I deviated from the traditional preparation is in the smoking. I didn't have cold smoking capability from the outset. I could have smoked it on the Big Green Egg, but, that could only be held at roughly 100 degrees. Bearing in mind that I destroyed the 3rd N'duja with temperatures on 90 degrees, I decided to wait on the smoking. I was unable to cold smoke all summer as it was an unusually warm summer. However, there was a week when it rained for 4 straight days and the temperature never climbed above 80 degrees. Luckily for me, I was ready to cold smoke a speck belly at the same time. So, even though it had already been dried, I decided to cold smoke it for roughly 22 hours. Surprisingly, the smoke did actually impact the flavor of the meat. Only thing I would change about it is the grind. I only ran it once through the large die of the KA grinder. I think a second run through would be perfect. There are just a couple of larger pieces that are slightly challenging. Overall, a very succesful project. On a similar note, I will be IN Calabria in October, I plan on spending a day in Spillinga asking questions and taking notes and pictures so I can really get this thing dialed in.

Mother of all Bacon

So, if the raw belly was "silly," then this bacon slab is just "Sick." These lovely slabs of deliciousness were treated with the utmost respect. Obviously, this is not pork belly you pick up in an Asian or Latin market. These are special, and deserve to be treated as such. This particular piece was cured with fresh ginger, sage and garlic to go with salt, pepper and sugar with a little cure #1. This has become my "go to" cure for bacon. As I know it works, I really didn't want to experiment with this piece of meat(refer to previously stated reasons). It was cured for 10 days. Usually I do a week, but, given the extra girth of this thing I gave it 3 extra days. For the first time, I decided to cure in vacuum sealed bags. I can't really be 100% as to whether or not this actually made a difference, but, at the very least, I didn't get in trouble for leaking bags in the refrigerator. Win-win. I removed it and rinsed it. It was dried off and set in front of a fan to develop a pellicle for an hour. While that was going on I had to get the hot smoke situation sorted out. Now, typically when I buy the $1.99/lb pork belly from a meat market/butcher, etc. (which have been absolutely awful, skinny and lean recently) I don't hold it in too high regard. I get out my $30 smoker, start a fire and throw some soaked wood chips on it. Smoke for 2-2.5 hours and remove it. Always works just fine. This time, however, I was NOT willing to disrespect this meat, as it wasn't $1.99/lb either :) . I set up my Big Green Egg. After quite a bit of tinkering, I was able to hold the temperature at 200 degrees. Only then did I introduce the soaked apple wood chips along with some apple wood dust. I babysat this sucker for 3 hours. A temperature probe was inserted after about an hour. Total smoke time was between 45 minutes and an hour. Total time on the fire was roughly 2.5 hours, maybe closer to 2 hours and 45 minutes. Took it off, waited 10 minutes and skinned it. Couldn't wait, I had to cut a piece off and try it. This meat really behaves differently than any meat I've ever eaten. I can't decide if the fat explodes or melts in your mouth, or both........explodes then melts. Either way, I can't say I've experienced it before. The worst part about using this meat is I don't think I'll waste my time with any other meat, seems useless. As for the rest of the belly, I made a Pancetta Tesa cured with thyme and juniper. Also, a Pancetta Calabrese cured with hot pepper powder and fennel seeds. Finally, a nice piece of Speck which was cured with caraway seeds, bay, juniper and thyme. The Speck will be cold smoked for a total of 20 hours, 4 hours for 5 days. N'duja also to be removed shortly.

Silly

Silly in reference to this pork belly I procured yesterday from Michael Clampffer of Mosefund Farms. This is an 18lb. whole belly of a Mangalitsa pig. Looks more like the belly of a brontosaurus. Like a Fred Flinstone pork belly, almost comical, cartoonish even. I plan on breaking this into 4 sections of roughly 4.5lbs each. One pancetta, one bacon, one speck and I'm undecided on what to do with the 4th piece. Perhaps I'll do 2 different pancette....tese, of course. I don't think arrotolata is even a possibility due to the size of this thing. Anyway, sorry for the short post. I thought this was noteworthy based on the ridiculousness of it. More on this in a week or so.

Best Bresaola yet

I know I've posted about Bresaola a couple times already. I realize it's not really sexy anymore. However, I found it noteworthy solely based on the result. This is as close to perfection I think that I could get. Looking at the individual thinly cut slices, you can see the slight marbling in the beef. You can also see on the outside that there is absolutely no case hardening and it's overall lovely rosy tint. This is a salumi I make over and over for one simple reason............I like to eat it, and so does everyone else, it's a real crowd pleaser. For entertaining purposes, I slice a bunch like you see in the picture, pile a bunch of pickled artichokes in the middle and drizzle with a really good olive oil. As far as taste, this one is dynamite. What's peculiar about this particular bresaola is that I forgot about it. I put it in to cure, which was sage, rosemary and juniper, along with salt, sugar, pepper and cure #2, of course. Put it in a Ziploc and into the refrigerator. I usually do 14-15 days on bresaole. Well, this one got lost in the shuffle and spent 21 days in the cure. I thought it would be a bit salty, or overwhelmed by juniper. Wrong. I think the juniper may have somehow mellowed, because there is only a slight, pleasant hint of it. The salt content was fine, not salty at all. I think 21 days will be be the new curing time for all bresaole I make. Very pleased with this one as you can tell. I'll be even happier to make it disappear.

Venison Salame..........Once again

It's been quite some time, over a year, to be exact, since I've made venison salame. Shame, too, because it really is fantastic and pretty damned easy to make. But, honestly, I haven't made any due to the fact that I haven't been given any venison. I'm told it's been a slow deer hunting season. I find this a bit of a conundrum as I can't keep deer from eating the plants in backyard. Who knows. Finally, my cousin brought me 3 lbs. of freshly butchered venison. This was super lean, crimson red meat.....like BLOOD red. I like to keep something this special really simple. I don't muddle it with too many ingredients, just salt, hot pepper powder and fresh garlic. That's it.

I ran this meat right through the grinder. It was butchered so thoroughly that there was NO fat and no connective tissue. I added 30% pork fat(jowl in this case). I used 3% salt, a pretty hefty 1.5% hot pepper powder, a couple fresh garlic cloves along with the obligatory cure #2(.25%) and lactic starter(.09%). Stuffed them in some beef middles where they will ferment for an undetermined amount of time. I've been going back and forth on the fermentation time and temperature and still haven't nailed anything down yet. I think I'll try 48 hours @ 80 degrees this go around. They should be ready in 4-5 weeks when the results will be posted.

Mangalitsa Guanciale

Here is that enormous Mangalitsa jowl that's been sitting in my curing chamber for several months. Just looking at the pictures you can tell this was a pretty special pig, or you can just assume he had a huge face ! I feel like the superlatives are redundant at a certain point, so, I won't gush. I always have "working" guanciale on hand, so, this was just a luxury. Also, when I saw the size of it, I knew it would be next to impossible for me to leave without it. I'm fairly confident I can make this guanciale disappear. Like I wrote, I always have "working" guanciale with which to cook. So, last week I needed some guanciale crisped and rendered for a recipe. The allure of using this stuff became overwhelming. I know it's heresy, but, I cut some up and cooked it. I keep looking through a thesaurus for synonyms for absurd or ridiculous and the like, but, I think I'd rather just describe how it tastes. Imagine that there was crispy pork flavored candy....................because there is! Seriously, if I were blindfolded, that's what I would have thought it was. Sweet, salty, porky candy. This stuff will definitely spoil me, I'm afraid. I am, as I have previously described, a guancialophile. I don't know how I'll be able to go back to "regular" guanciale after this. If you have the means to procure it, I highly recommend it.

Mangalitsa Lardo is ready

Here is the gigantic piece of Lardo that's been sitting in my chamber for 3 months. This stuff is just silly. Look at that lovely rose colored hue running right through the middle of it. I was concerned that it wouldn't be cured, I only left it to cure for 3 weeks. I also dried it as I would any other salumi, bearing in mind I don't have the unique marble coffin used in Tuscany for just this application. But, I am relieved to announce it is just fine. In fact, more than fine. It's terrific. I think God put these piggies on earth specifically to cure, I can't imagine they serve a better purpose than this. As I wrote prior regarding the coppa and how it melts in your mouth, the Lardo is even more unctuous, if that's possible. I sliced some paper thin to put on bruschetta. I toasted the bread and while it was still warm added the lardo. It was drizzled with top notch olive oil and cracked pepper. By the time I got to it, the lardo had begun to melt into the bread..............sick. There is one small caveat with this stuff. But, this goes for all salumi. I sliced a little with a knife that was a bit thicker than the with the machine and I didn't care for the mouth feel, it was a bit challenging. Again, this is true of all salumi. Sliced thinly on bruschetta, I made a whole lot disappear. Another small bit of advice when playing with Lardo. Prior to slicing, remove it from the chamber and either into the refrigerator for a couple hours or into the freezer for a couple minutes. This will make it much easier to slice. Otherwise, it will get really soft and be a pain in the neck to slice correctly. As you can see by the picture, it was starting to sweat a little. Doesn't take long, maybe 5 minutes. Mangalitsa guanciale is up next.